Seguranza Mining Company 1910 (San Luis Potosi)

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Beautifully engraved certificate from the Seguranza Mining Company issued in September 1910. This historic document has an ornate border around it with vignettes of men working in a mine shaft. There is aslo a Mexican Tax Stamp attached to the document on the bottom in the center. This item has the printed sigantures of the companys officals and is over 90 years old. San Luis Potosi is one of the most beautiful spanish colonial cities of Mexico and was founded in 1592 by a spanish soldier named Miguel Caldera, close to the silver mines of San Pedro. San Luis Potosi is now considered one of the most important Industrial towns of Mexico. The name of San Luis Potosí was given in honor of San Luis, French King and Potosí was used to compare the wealth of the mines of the Hill of San Pedro with those of Potosí in Bolivia. Other version of the origin of the name is that was given as homage to the Viceroy Luis of Velasco. Points of Interest: Goverment Palace, Church of Nuestra Senora del Carmen , Tangamanga park. The State of San Luis Potosí is located in the west-central section of México. It has an area of 62,850 km2 and a population of 2.2 million. More than half of its territory is desert or semi-desert, with high plateaus where the capital is located while the rest is fertile and humid. Historical significance of San Luis Potosi in 1910: Francisco Madero: The Plan of San Luis Potosi, November 20, 1910 The Mexican presidential election of 1910 was stolen when Porfirio Diaz - the longtime dictator, had his opponent Madero arrested and imprisoned. Madero took refuge infled to San Antonio, and issued the Plan of San Luis Potosi calling for the nullification of the elections and upon Mexicans to take up arms against the government. The date of its issue marks the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Peoples, in their constant efforts for the triumph of the ideal of liberty and justice, are forced, at precise historical moments, to make their greatest sacrifices. Our beloved country has reached one of those moments. A force of tyranny which we Mexicans were not accustomed to suffer after we won our independence oppresses us in such a manner that it has become intolerable. In exchange for that tyranny we are offered peace, but peace full of shame for the Mexican nation, because its basis is not law, but force; because its object is not the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, but to enrich a small group who, abusing their influence, have converted the public charges into fountains of exclusively personal benefit, unscrupulously exploiting the manner of lucrative concessions and contracts. The legislative and judicial powers are completely subordinated to the executive; the division of powers, the sovereignty of the States, the liberty of the common councils, and the rights of the citizens exist only in writing in our great charter; but, as a fact, it may almost be said that martial law constantly exists in Mexico; the administration of justice, instead of imparting protection to the weak, merely serves to legalize the plunderings committed by the strong; the judges instead of being the representatives of justice, are the agents of the executive, whose interests they faithfully serve; the chambers of the union have no other will than that of the dictator; the governors of the States are designated by him and they in their turn designate and impose in like manner the municipal authorities. From this it results that the whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost. For many years profound discontent has been felt throughout the Republic, due to such a system of government, but General Diaz with great cunning and perseverance, has succeeded in annihilating all independent elements, so that it was not possible to organize any sort of movement to take from him the power of which he made such bad use. The evil constantly became worse, and the decided eagerness of General Diaz to impose a successor upon the nations in the person of Mr. Ramon Corral carried that evil to its limit and caused many of us Mexicans, although lacking recognized political standing, since it had been impossible to acquire it during the 36 years of dictatorship, to throw ourselves into the struggle to recover the sovereignty of the people and their rights on purely democratic grounds.... In Mexico, as a democratic Republic, the public power can have no other origin nor other basis than the will of the people, and the latter can not be subordinated to formulas to be executed in a fraudulent manner. . . , For this reason the Mexican people have protested against the illegality of the last election and, desiring to use successively all the recourses offered by the laws of the Republic, in due form asked for the nullification of the election by the Chamber of Deputies, notwithstanding they recognized no legal origin in said body and knew beforehand that, as its members were not the representatives of the people, they would carry out the will of General Diaz, to whom exclusively they owe their investiture. In such a state of affairs the people, who are the only sovereign, also protested energetically against the election in imposing manifestations in different parts of the Republic; and if the latter were not general throughout the national territory, It was due to the terrible pressure exercised by the Government, which always quenches in blood any democratic manifestation, as happened in Puebla, Vera Cruz, Tlaxcala, and in other places. But this violent and illegal system can no longer subsist. I have very well realized that if the people have designated me as their candidate. for the Presidency it is not because they have had an opportunity to discover in me the qualities of a statesman or of a ruler, but the virility of the patriot determined to sacrifice himself, if need be, to obtain liberty and to